Amazon Kindle DX Ebook Leaves Princeton Students Disappointed

It seems that Amazon’s much vaunted Kindle ebook reader has failed to impress students at the Princeton University with a number of them pointing out that the popular ebook reader was difficult to use.

Under a pilot project aimed at conserving paper, 50 students at Princeton University were offered the large screen Kindle DX ebook reader with their course readings for the semester preloaded on it.

Most students who used the product complained about the unease of learning from an ebook reader, while pointing out that the Kindle was painfully slow and took a lot effort to operate.

Some students specifically complained about their inability to underline text, make margin notes etc with Kindle, things which they typically do when they learn from paper text books and said that Kindle was unable to give them the learning experience which they derived from traditional text books.

Not all students though were critical of the ebook reader with some appreciating its capacity to carry a lot of information; thus saving them the hassle of carrying heavy text books and notes.

The University apparently tied up with Amazon last May, which incidentally was founded by Princeton alumnus Jeff Bezos, as a part of a “sustainability initiative to conserve paper”.

However with students expressing an apparent dislike for using Kindle, one now has to wait and see whether the University management continues with the initiative (ed: or the students might instead choose to wait till January 2010 when Apple is rumoured to launch its tablet).

Our Comments

The Kindle is a great product but Apple could well launch a product that literally blows the competition like it did with the iPhone. Amazon's tablet still suffers from a number of faults as highlighted by the trial with the Princetonians. Hopefully, Amazon will learn from the whole experiment and produce an even better device.